Milton S. Hershey

After coming close to bankruptcy again, the company finally took off and became a rousing success. His new-fangled milk caramels were very popular. .
             Mr. Hershey became fascinated with German chocolate-making machinery on exhibit at the Chicago International Exposition in 1893. He bought the equipment for his Lancaster plant and soon began producing his own chocolate coatings for caramels. At this time, chocolate was available only to those wealthy enough to afford the expensive treat, and Hershey began making it available at an affordable price. At first, he sold chocolate-covered caramels. Later, in 1894, the Hershey Chocolate Company was formed as a subsidiary of his Lancaster caramel business. In addition to chocolate coatings, Mr. Hershey made breakfast cocoa, sweet chocolate and baking chocolate. His company was making him a fortune. In 1900 Milton Hershey sold the Lancaster Caramel Company for $1 million. However he retained the chocolate manufacturing equipment and the rights to manufacture chocolate, believing a large market existed for affordable confections that could be mass-produced. .
             He returned to Derry Township, where he wanted to use the million dollars to build a new chocolate-only plant. He chose some swampy land east of Harrisburg where there was lots of good clean water, rail transportation, and prosperous dairy farms for fresh milk. In 1903, with the money he received for his caramel business, he began to build what is now the world's largest chocolate manufacturing plant. .
             In 1905, Hershey's Chocolate was born and the mass production of milk chocolate began. But Hershey's business was more than an ordinary business. He also planned to have a great community built around the factory. The Community, named Hershey, was built with employee satisfaction in mind. Milton built streetcar lines to nearby towns to bring in workers. He built parks, railroad lines, a department store, a bank, schools, a museum, and donated land for churches.